So far your results are looking an awfully lot like ours. Is that the confirmation bias, or are these more obvious then I thought? It should get trickier from here. Consider some of the other top tens. Baseball Digest Daily has compiled all the rankings into one handy spreadsheet, click over to the NL Central and see what I’m talking about.
The first three or four are all about the same, but after that, the rankings diverge greatly. Some players that are top ten prospects on one list don’t make the cut, for example Jess Todd is # 4 on BA’s list and he doesn’t crack Keith Law’s. OTOH, Keith has Niko Vasquez and Francisco Samuel on his list. Kevin Goldstein has Adam Reifer. BA and our list are the only ones to have David Freese. That’s a lot of disparity.
Here’s what we have so far. Vote now for #7.
- Rasmus
- Wallace
- Perez
- Jones
- Anderson
- Motte
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Confirmation bias has to be part of it. People who read this site use the information they get here to help form educated opinions. So it’s no surprise that lots of people are picking the same way you did. We’re influenced by all the reports we’ve seen from BA, BP, Sickels, you guys, etc. Fwiw, I voted for Kozma in this spot. It may be a little high, but I think he’s our best middle infield prospect, ahead of Niko. Middle infielders are valuable commodities in this system. I think Todd would be next after Kozma on my list.
I voted for Boggs. I feel like I am one of the few people who thinks he has some serious upside. Boggs has tremendous velocity and movement on his fastball. Plus he carries it late into games. I think that he will gain consistency with his breaking pitches and come into his own as a #3 starter. I think he will be a #5 when he breaks into the bigs for good this year but that by 2011 we will be wondering how he could miss most top 10′s.
I voted Boggs, too, although a vote for Lynn was tempting.
I voted for Garcia because of his upside, but my next pick would have been Boggs. I think his games vs KC and Boston made me feel like he could stick as a decent starter which is something we have really struggled to produce over the years.
prospect lists in themselves r very different. personally i would rather see the “who will be good next year” list instead of the “he might be good in 5 years” lists. its basically impossible to compare a guy like say brett wallace and tim beckham. one of the prospects list has like 20 out of the top 50 from last years draft. that is just dumb. it seems when u just add the newbies into a prospect list u r just sidestepping actual research and just going by name guys.
on a seperate subject i was studying cardinals payroll last ngiht and it looks like we r in great shape for 2010 if not 2009. as of right now we have 40 mil coming off the books after this year. i have no life so i will show
2009 2010
larue larue/anderson
ankiel pick one
glaus wallace
franklin(2.5 option) farm system
piniero boggs/garcia
kennedy ?
greene ?
wellemeyer ?
ok thats our 8 players who could be gone after 2009. we appear to have cheap replacements for everyone except kennedy, greene, and welley. with this calculation we will have 35-40 mil to spend on these 3 positions which would be absolutely awesome.
greene bounces back 7-8 mil per.
placido polanco at 2b for 7 or 8 mil(keeps albert happy)
any starter we want
some lefthanded reliever
i still dont like our 2009 team but i think 2010 and 2011 will be good years. our organization has done a nice job bringing in and developing this young talent. we may not have a ton of sure thing guys but we have depth in multiple positions. i really like our future.
With salary increases and arbitration that 35-40 million will come down to nothing. Probably enough to extend Charlie Manning for one more season. Expect more low hanging fruit.
- jaded fan who doesn’t buy the BS coming from Moz or the front office
no that number is with all the raises. we dont have too many guys whos salary increases drastically between 09 and 10.
carp +.5
lohse +.6
molina +.1
wainwright +2.05
ludwick arb raise
skip first time arb
thats 10 mil tops. please do not dismiss what i say so blindly. i actually spent time to figure this stuff out. u complain about our payroll but go to cotsmlbcontracts. last years payroll was 7 million more than any year in cardinals history. our problem was dead weight contracts in encarnacion, mulder, carp, and izzy. next year we drop more dead weight in piniero and kennedy. that combined with a healthy carp means a rise back to the top.
- cardinal fan. nothing more. nothing less.
Joel – your work was well done and I appreciate it. I was just trying to bring some reality to your optimism of spending alot of money. I think that while the numbers show we will have 30-40 million to spend in reality we will find alot of excuses from the FO of why we can’t spend that money.
ok thank you. i believe the money will be there but i agree they might find a way to not spend it. its still unclear whether or not they will spend the roughly 8 million more they have for this year. i agree the cards r cheap in the sneaky way u describe but we still have tons of money coming off the books. i really like our future with wallace and rasmus(who doesnt) so i sure hope we can hold this 100 million payroll. the cubs think they r the yankees midwest trying to buy a championship. we have history on our side. go cards.
The Cards are projected as an 88-win team. If Carp can pitch a full season, it’s more like a 91- or 92-win team. If K. Greene puts on a salary drive in his walk year, we might be a 90-win team even without Carp.
I know this isn’t a popular opinion, but I think Mo has had a decent off-season. I don’t see any moves out there that would’ve improved our team by another 3-5 wins that appeared to be in our price range.
(And by “price range,” I include the opportunity cost of losing a first-round draft pick.)
Lou-
I dont disagree with a thing you said. There isn’t a player out there that can add many more wins to the bottom line. In a grand cardinal tradition I do think that there are a few “throw shit at the wall moves” that can provide some insurance. I would like to see them trade from the outfield depth for a pitcher or take a flyer on one of the second tier starters on the market. And gawd I would like to see them sign Will Ohman, pleases.
to continue with what u r saying jawz, i agree the impact guy that made perfect sense really easnt available. with fuentes i could have gone either way. #1 pick and 9 mil per is quite pricey. here r a couple of ideas for a trade or “throw at the wa;;”.
free agent
kris benson(he has cardinal written all over him)
looper if hes cheap
ohman/beimel(ill take either one)
orlando hudson(if his price keeps going down why not)
trade
mike gonzalez
ben zobrst
roberts/sherrill from baltimore(exactly what we need)
bj ryan
ian kennedy(i would invlude my pinky for hughes)
i also woulddnt mind us talking to colorado and getting a #5 or #6 starter. how about wellemeyer for de la rosa and hirsch or reynolds. i think welley is the best pitcher but we would get 2 guys, one of whom is lefthanded in de la rosa(who is severely underrated). also i am all for taking pitchers from colorado. guys magically forget how to pitch there and leave there and remember again. much like taking a guy like greene from san diego, im all for acquiring col pitchers.
I voted kozma, for essentially the same reason as PFP.
also, this may have been stated already, but maybe next year when you guys decide on your prospect list, hold them. then, take the community, and after that, reveal your list. it seems the only way to try to minimize bias as much as possible, aside from daily readers knowing each of your personal favorites.
i also think that if every reader submitted their own list, it would vary much more from the community as a whole. for example, maybe my first 5 are unique, but my next 5 fall in line with the rest of the community. chances are, my first 5 will be part of also-ran candidates from the first 5 polls, so my unique perspective will be washed out. though perhaps this is trying too hard, maybe we could invovle some sort of spread for each player poll-by-poll. clearly, motte will not get any more votes, but it may be telling to see how early he started to get votes. this will likely be more useful starting with the current poll, where there is likely more disagreement among readers.
I also voted for Kozma, the way I see it he has potential to be much more valuable
than most of the pitchers listed. After Perez and Motte the rest of the pitchers don’t seem very exciting. Garcia has potential and Boggs did pretty well during his call up last season.
I want to see how Reifer, Todd, Mortenson and Lynn do this season before rating them in the top 7.
Also want to see how Garcia recovers from surgery.
Certainly with all the prospect ratings out there that we all read there must be some bias as mentioned.
Thanks for the great job y’all do!